


The Tale of Lina and Ditto

by sylveondreams



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Story within a Story, a ditto pretends to be a human for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24693682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylveondreams/pseuds/sylveondreams
Summary: Do you want me to tell you a story before bed, little one? A sad one? About aDitto? That's a tall order! I'll try my best...
Kudos: 4





	The Tale of Lina and Ditto

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, let’s call her Lina, who loved to play in her backyard with the flock of Pidgeys who often clustered there. One Pidgey, a smaller one with beady eyes and a tendency to peck at other Pidgeys who came too close, took a liking to her and began to spend longer and longer amounts of time perched on Lina’s shoulder. Finally, she took the Pidgey inside for the night, and the two were inseparable from then on. 

There was something different about that Pidgey, though. As it fell asleep with Lina in her little Snorlax bed, it turned into a Pidgey-sized rock. When Lina woke up, she was holding a blob of purple goop. It smiled pleasantly up at her, and she smiled back. 

At breakfast, the new appearance of Lina’s Pidgey surprised her mother, who eyed it with suspicion. She’d heard stories that a Ditto in the yard could mean bad luck was to come, but what did the stories say about when the Pokémon your two-year-old brought into your  _ house _ turned out to be a Ditto? Nothing! Lina’s mother’s Growlithe looked at her like he’d known all along that the Pidgey was a Ditto. 

As time passed, Lina grew up, wanting to become a trainer as most children do. Her mother sewed her a jacket to keep her toy Pokéballs in, and Lina tramped around town with her Ditto, battling wild Pokémon under the watchful eye of her mother’s Growlithe, who was tasked with following the little one everywhere.

At the age of ten, Lina fell deathly ill, confined to her bed with a Munna curled around her head to eat her fevered dreams and help her sleep better. As always, her Ditto kept her company, its blobby body nestled comfortably in her arms. One day, her mother came into the room with a tray of food to spoon-feed to Lina and found another version of Lina, dressed in her trainer outfit, seated on the chair next to the bed, her head bent over the real Lina and her hand firmly holding Lina’s. Lina’s mother dropped the tray of food she was carrying, assuming correctly that the real Lina was cold, her eyes closed for good. The Ditto stood up and hugged Lina’s mother around the stomach, the toy Pokéballs on her vest pressing against her leg.

As the day progressed, the Ditto sprang into action, going to the store and buying as many Pokéballs and potions the money in Lina’s Milbank could buy. Over the years she had been Lina’s companion, she had learned Unova Sign Language from the Blaziken next door to communicate with her. Through a combination of this and pointing, she stocked her bag for a journey. Lina’s mother, grieving at home, understood and gave the Ditto what she would have given Lina if Lina had insisted on going on a trainer’s journey. 

With running shoes tied tight on her feet and an assortment of food in her bag, the Ditto visited the Professor she had visited with Lina for the past eight years. When she left again, a Tepig trotted beside her, nose raised in the air and tail bobbing behind. 

Into the tall grass the two Pokémon went, and when they encountered a Pidgey, it blinked at them, recognizing the Ditto as the one who’d been part of the Pidgey flock so long ago. They forged ahead, Pokéballs unused and the Pidgey sitting proudly on the handmade purple pom-pom Ditto hat atop the Ditto’s curly hair. 

And so they went, gathering gym badges and leveling up their little party: Emboar, Pidgeot, Hitmonlee, Stoutland, Simipour, and Breloom. Ditto kept her identity secret, helped along by her faithful Stoutland, who barked to distract her whenever she threatened to laugh, and no one knew that the reason she didn’t speak was because she was really a Pokémon. 

The Ditto was very nice to people, and when word spread of this little girl who’d overcome a serious illness to go out and become a trainer, she found herself receiving directions and items and food in towns, although she always refused lodging in favor of camping in the woods with her team. 

After months of traveling and sleeping in forests with packs of wild Pokémon, this prodigy trainer who seemed to communicate with her team through telepathy gathered all her badges and reached the Elite Four. The battles were hard, and her potion supply nearly ran out, but with her Breloom’s last Tackle, she won. She was eligible to fight the Champion. 

The Champion at the time was an old man, but he was first a Dragon-type trainer like Iris is today, so when the Ditto was able to get down to his last Pokémon, a huge Druddigon, with her cleverness and her bond with her Pokémon, she realized that although it seemed like she was losing, she could fulfil Lina’s dream of being Champion. Her Simipour fainted. The Champion thought he’d won until the Ditto finally used Transform again, copying the Druddigon. She defeated it, and became Champion. 

Now, of course, the Ditto knew that the Champion title was undeserved. She had an extra Pokémon on her team, after all. But the Champion put his hand on her shoulder and told her that if she wanted, he wouldn’t tell anyone that she was a Pokémon herself. She thanked him and refused the Champion’s title. After all, that was for Lina. 

The moral of this story? Oh, dear. I should never have given you that book of fables! I suppose the moral is that when you find a Pokémon partner, my little one, you should keep it close no matter what it is, because the love between a human and their Pokémon is more special than anything else. Good night, my love, and don’t let the Litwicks bite. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [sylveondreams](https://sylveondreams.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
